response 26 of 69:

Nov 4 03:32 UTC 1996

     If Grex gets that free T1 connection that has been discussed in a 
different item, Grex would be able to hanlde a lot more electronic mail, 
so this problem will not be as profound as it now seems.  Before we take 
any action, I suggest we see how things are if/after the T1 connection 
is available.  Another idea is to send the email-only users to M-Net.  
Tell them that M-Net has a faster internet connection.  This will kill 
two birds with one stone, although quite nasty to M-Net.  But hey, they 
have a faster connection than Grex, and Grex often has more users logged 
on than M-Net.

     I think the idea of appending an automatic .signature file will not 
work.  It may advertise to others that Grex gives free E-Mail access to 
anybody.  But more importantly, it will have the opposite effect that we 
want.  If each E-Mail message is increased by "X" many bytes, then won't 
that just cause Grex's connection to get slower from sending more data 
over it's tiny 28.8 connection?

     I doubt the idea of E-Mail quotas will work.  If Grex downloads an 
email address from a remote site, it would be quicker for Grex to just 
give the user his or her email and be done with it.  If email quotas are 
implimented, then Grex would still have to receive the mail, but once it 
is discovered that this person's mail quota is full (taking up processor 
time) and then sending a message back to the foreign host (taking up 
bandwidth) and then later receiving the message for a second time the 
next day when the users' email quota is not full, which takes up even 
more bandwith.

     Perhaps the email survey is a good idea.  I see one obvious problem 
with it though.  When the user ran the "newuser program" they probably 
read the exact same information about the slow connection grex has, low 
disk space, etc.  What makes you think the user will all of a sudden 
start caring about the needs of other people on Grex if they didn't 
bother to follow the rules the first time, or even bother to reply to 
the message?  I doubt that this will provide good results, but it seems 
like the best solution proposed so far.

response 28 of 69:

Nov 4 06:40 UTC 1996

There are certainly other places that "add" information to outgoing mail
or web pages.  Personally, I don't like them.  They are sort of like the
"obnoxicons" that show up in the lower right of your TV screen.  Imagine
if, when placing outgoing phone calls, before you could speek, a
friendly recording showed up that said "this service provided by Ford
Motor Co, makers of fine automobiles."

response 30 of 69:

Nov 4 14:43 UTC 1996

   Good point John--hadn't thought of that.

   In general, I am against all the proposed systems to limit
e-mail, *except* that of informing the largest users.

   Putting "limits" on email isn't going to work without changing
Grex drastically.  We support an open newuser: therefore, the person
who doens't care about Grex and simple wants more email will take out extra
accounts, one for different types of email.

   Back several months ago we stopped making a daily list of
disk usage statistics, and updating the "locate" database.  While
technically prudent, it's been very bad in another sense because we
haven't been able to keep tabs on the system anywhere nearly as well 
as before.  I used to send messages out about twice a week to accounts 
that were forwarding mailing lists, or using huge amounts of disk.
Nearly 99% of the people I sent mail to took care of the problem very
quickly, once they understood that there was a problem.

   Before we make any new policies about email, I feel very strongly
that we should:

 - make it muchmore clear at the front of newuser that Grex has
   limits.  Much more forceful unforunately.  Longer, too.

 - figure out ways to keep track of usage again, such that "problems" are
   discovered soon after they have started up.

 - change FTP such that smallish files go through the link very quickly, 
   but degrade at (100K? 150K?) some point making FTPs of mail
   unattractive.

 - send mail to the large users, explaining things to them.

response 32 of 69:

Nov 4 17:07 UTC 1996

Would it take much coding to disallow .forwards?  I use .forward myself but
if taking away a simple command line would help solve the mail problem.  Also
havent seen any objections to earlier suggestion of restricting some of the
mailers (pine, elm .etc)

response 34 of 69:

Nov 4 19:00 UTC 1996

Okay see...thats a reasonable reason why that suggestion is unworkable.   I
accept that.  Ofcourse Remmers would probably flame me for making the
suggestion in the first place because he only thinks certain users can
make valuable contributions to this conference.

I happen to thin that any contribution by anyone is valuable.  

response 36 of 69:

Nov 4 19:19 UTC 1996

(Richard's response slipped in.)

response 38 of 69:

Nov 4 20:28 UTC 1996

#35...valid enough, restricting .forwards was just a thought.  (contrary
to certain people's opinions, I do know when an issue should be dropped,
for instance I havent made a post in the "lets adopt mnet's confs" item
in weeks.  Noone went for the idea.  I droppped it.  )

response 40 of 69:

Nov 5 18:26 UTC 1996

I've been doing some study of individual usage.  It appears that "major users"
fall pretty much in two classes:

  - Mailing list subscribers.  Often just a single active mailing list is
  enough
    to put you near the top of the list.

  - Huge files.  Many of the people near the top of the list sent or recieved
    just one or two very large files.  I was sampling only a week's data, so
    some of these people may be just one time members of the mail hog list.  In
    some cases, it looks like a single huge file got mailed into Grex, got
    mailed from user to user, and then got mailed out again.

The first class of user could probably be productively talked to, suggesting
that they might consider subscribing to the mailing list from some other place,
if they have an alternative.

The second class is harder to talk to, because the people who were heavy users
one week may well not be the ones mailing around big files the next week.

response 42 of 69:

Nov 5 19:31 UTC 1996

I have some personal experience with heavy mail (ab)users.  I live with one.
Here's what happened.  

She is on a slow mailing list (probably average less than 2 messages per
day)  and I have to remind her to get on grex to check her mail because I
sometimes check the size of her mailbox when I feel like it's been a long
time since she has logged in.  I had to configure pine because she did not
often bother to delete old mail and her mailbox was getting full. 

She gets on a more active mailing list that she really enjoys.  She gets on
grex every day, sometimes more than once a day.  She shouts at the computer
when grex crashes while she had been writing something.  I try to get her to
compose messages off-line but the tools are hard to use and she wants to keep
doing it the way she knows.

I get tired of the phone being busy so much of the time because she's
composing mail on pine on grex.

I buy an account on a local ISP for us to share.  I tell her to move the
mailing list stuff to the ISP account but she wants to keep doing what works.

I figure out how to subscribe the ISP account to the busy mailing list.
Soon she gets comfortable with the local mail tool and dialing the ISP.
When she is satisfied that everything works and is usable, I think I was
the one who had to unsubscribe the grex account to the mailing list.

She again has to be reminded to get on grex to check the slower mailing
list.  She prefers to send mail from the ISP, so she will forward any mail
from grex to the ISP if it needs a reply. 

She wants a .forward from grex to the ISP account, but I tell her that she
should not do that while the grex account is on a mailing list.  She does
not bother to figure out how to get the slower mailing list to switch
over.  Eventually I take care of that and set up the .forward.  

Finally, her .forward generates very little traffic, and she does not have
to get on grex to read mail. 

So, why did I type all that?  I'm not trying to insult her.  I'm just
trying to say that some of the mail abuse may be coming from people who
don't know any better and maybe we have to make the effort to help them
set up in an efficient way which minimizes the impact on grex.

response 44 of 69:

Nov 5 21:17 UTC 1996

Kaplan, does staf have an official policy saying users cant
.forward mailing lists?   I was only aware that originating
mailing lists is a no-no on grex.  

response 46 of 69:

Nov 6 07:29 UTC 1996

Right, I didn't say she couldn't have a .forward file because of the mailing
list.  I just said I didn't think she should have one.

response 48 of 69:

Nov 6 19:18 UTC 1996

Actually, it's fairly recent that newuser asked people not to create mailing
lists on Grex.  For some reason we forgot to list that.  I added text about
mailing lists maybe a month or three ago.  And I think the number of mailing
lists we've run across since then has been much lower.